Ann Moore, the CEO of Time Inc., the publishing division of media giant Time Warner, whose titles includes People, Time, Sports Illustrated and In Style, is going to step down after eight years, according to knowledgeable sources.

She is expected to be succeeded by Jack Griffin, who until Monday was the CEO of Meredith’s national media group, the division that publishes Better Homes & Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal.

An announcementcould be made as early as next week. Griffin resigned from Meredith unexpectedly and did not return calls seeking comment.

Time Warner declined to comment.

Moore, who just turned 60, talked from time to time about leaving but ultimately would be offered a contract extension.

Her current contract expires in mid-2011. There has been persistent buzz in recent months that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was finally seriously looking for Moore’s successor.

Insiders expect that Griffin will be less sentimental about keeping non-core titles and will be quicker to trim the portfolio than Moore, who spent her entire 32-year business career at Time Inc., including the last eight as CEO.

Griffin is also seen as an executive who made good strategic acquisitions in the digital realm, such as the purchase of hot mobile shop The Hyperfactory earlier this year. Meredith was the only major magazine publisher to report ad page gains in 2009.

After hemorrhaging through the worst of the recession with two years of declining revenues, Time Inc. seems to have finally righted itself in the first half of 2010.

In the second quarter, revenues held steady at $919 million while operating profit was up 50 percent, to $153 million, from a year ago.

For the first half, operating income was $203 million, up dramatically from the $70 million in the same period a year ago. While ad revenues were up, overall revenue was flat in the first six months.

Moore was the first woman CEO of Time Inc. Her reign will go down as decidedly mixed.

She made tough decisions, dismantled much of the old-boy network and pushed the nation’s biggest publisher aggressively into the digital area.

But she was also forced to shut down titles such as Life as a weekly and sell a group of special interest titles to Bonnier two years ago. While she was responsible for spinning off Real Simple and In Style from People when she was the group president, more recent startups have not been as successful.

Finally, Moore never groomed an in-house successor. Many execs who were viewed as a possible heir apparent over the years either quit or were forced out.